I'm sure that's what used to happen here in terms of it being remotely activated.
I remember at my uni house there was a phone line installed, just not active. I called BT to activate it, once it was done about 48 hours later I then signed up to some ADSL with an ISP and all that didn't require any engineer visits to the property.
At my flat a BT Openreach engineer had to turn up (after not turning up the first time) to fiddle with the cabinet on the street to activate the phoneline.
EDITED: 31 Jul 2013 16:10 by ANT_THOMAS